1. The Board of Directors had approved a change in the Accounting year of the Company to commence from 1st April of every year and to end on 31st March of the following year. Consequently, as a transitional arrangement, the current year Annual Accounts and Report of the Company are for a period of 15 months commencing January 01, 2008 and ending March 31, 2009. The figures in respect of the previous year, however, relate to 12 months ended December 31, 2007 and hence are not comparable.

2. Net sales grew by 6 % during the quarter ending March 09. FMCG sales grew by 11.8% with a 11.5% growth in HPC and 13.2% growth in Foods businesses.

3. Operating Profit (Profit from Operations before Interest and Exceptional Items) for the quarter at Rs 55507 lakhs (MQ 08: Rs. 44883 lakhs) grew by 23.7%.

4. Profit after tax from ordinary activities before exceptional items for the quarter at Rs 45676 lakhs (MQ 08: Rs 37929 lakhs) grew by 20.4 %.

5. Other Operational Income includes loss of Rs 298 lakhs for MQ 09 (MQ 08: gain of Rs 1260 lakhs) & gain of Rs 6123 lakhs for fifteen months ended Mar 09 (Twelve Months ended Dec 07: loss of Rs. 877 lakhs) on account of mark to market valuation of open forward contracts & monetary items (viz. foreign currency receivables & payables) in line with AS -11.

6. Other income includes interest income, dividend income and net gain on sale of investments. 

7. Exceptional items in MQ’09 include profit on sale of properties Rs. 669 lakhs (MQ’08: Rs. 644 lakhs), incremental provision for retirement benefits of Rs. 6048 lakhs (MQ’08: Nil) arising out of change in actuarial assumptions largely due to lower interest rates, restructuring costs of Rs. 2570 lakhs (MQ’08: Rs. 392 lakhs) & provision for remediation of a site of Rs 2500 lakhs (MQ 08: Nil).

8. Provision for taxation for the quarter includes Fringe Benefit Tax of Rs. 206 lakhs - net of recoveries (MQ’08: Rs. 875 lakhs) and provision of Rs. 875 lakhs (MQ 08 Rs. Nil) representing taxation adjustments of previous years.

9. As indicated in the note 1, the full year audited results for the 15 month period ended March 31, 2009 are not comparable with those of year ended December 31, 2007. However on a memorandum basis, for comparative purposes unaudited results for 12 months ended March 31, 2009 are given below:

a) Net Sales at Rs.1647675 lakhs grew by 15.5%.

b) Profit from Operations before Interest & Exceptional items at Rs. 239606 lakhs grew by 18.8%,

c) Profit after Tax from ordinary activities before exceptional items at Rs.206520 lakhs grew by 15%

d) Net Profit at Rs. 211550 lakhs grew by 10.6%.

10. The Board of Directors at their meeting held on May 10, 2009 recommended a final dividend of Rs. 4 per share of Re.1/- each, for the said 15 months ending March 31, 2009, subject to the approval of the shareholders. Together with the interim dividend of Rs 3.50 per share paid on August 18, 2008, the total dividend for the said 15 months period works out to Rs 7.50 per share of Re 1/- each. Final dividend, if any, will be paid on or after July 06, 2009.

11. Notice is hereby given pursuant to Section 154 of the Companies Act, 1956 that for the purpose of ascertaining the shareholders who will be eligible to receive the final dividend, if any, for the said 15 months period.

12. Previous period figures have been re-grouped/restated wherever necessary to conform to this period’s classification.

13. The text of the above statement was approved by the Board of Directors at their meeting held on May 10, 2009.

Nitin Paranjpe
Managing Director & CEO